Remnants
by Alory Shannon
Summary: Things are different between them after that fateful mission to destroy the Kanabi Bridge. One-shot drabble. KakaRin.


"It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace."

_-George Bernard Shaw_

* * *

Things are different between them after that fateful mission to destroy the Kanabi Bridge.

It isn't an instantaneous change, nor is it particularly significant, not at first; just small adjustments in the behaviour of each, a slight shift, the resulting ripples from the stone that shattered the comparatively calm surface of their lives. Both grieve in their own way, both have their own means of expressing their sorrow over their third teammate's unanticipated absence, both have been altered, for the better or the worse.

He's less uptight; she's less happy-go-lucky. He's more likely to remain silent when challenged, more accepting of criticism; she's more likely to take on tough assignments at the hospital, more successful in performing them. When he visits the monument, he can't stop the tears from leaking out of his left eye; when she finds him there, her eyes are always dry, even in the rain. He sees more; she feels less.

After what he'd told her, he'd expected her to avoid him; after her confession, she'd expected him to ignore her, and while both are partially right, neither can deny that their bond has been strengthened as well.

But she does work longer hours in the hospital, and she's stopped giving him those private healing and first aid lessons she'd once been so excited about, murmuring some excuse about how she'd taught him all she could, even though he knows (and she knows he knows) she could teach him for years and never share all the medical knowledge she possesses.

And he does leave the team--he requests a transfer into ANBU within hours of returning home from destroying that stupid bridge--and there are weeks at a time when she doesn't see him, and then she'll suddenly find him standing outside the hospital gates, still in his ANBU uniform (almost always in his ANBU uniform these days) and usually covered in blood (most of it isn't his), waiting to see her, to let her see him, let her take him home and heal him and allow him to avoid the otherwise necessary trip to the hospital.

Neither holds any sort of grudge against the other, regardless of the undeniable indications of the small spider-line cracks lacing the foundation of their relationship, because they can sense that the breaking is what binds them, and what first brought them closer.

That first night after Obito's death, they'd ended up sharing a bedroll; they had started out spaced the usual distance from each other, but both had been unable to sleep, wracked with shivers that had nothing to do with the cool night air. It hadn't been a deliberate movement on the part of either, but before long, they'd shifted until they were nearly side by side, less than half a foot of space separating them, and when Rin had impulsively rolled over and buried her face against his shoulder, Kakashi had merely turned towards her, put his arm around her, welcoming the warmth.

They'd spent the rest of the night curled up like kittens, so tightly intertwined that it was impossible to tell where one began and the other ended, and when the morning sun rose, tickling their eyes open with its golden touch, neither had offered an explanation or word of apology; they hadn't needed to. A simple shared look, eyes that linked and lingered for just a moment longer than before, spoke volumes.

Not that everything was perfect again, because it wasn't, and isn't, and probably won't ever be--both still have an emptiness inside that wasn't there before, both have new scars, mental and physical, both see things differently, literally and figuratively.

But knowing that there is someone else who understands that emptiness, the fresh wounds, the unexpected shift in sight--just knowing that is a comfort, and although they oftentimes feel more hollow than whole, they resonate together because of it, the achingly empty cavities in their chests vibrating on the same frequency of pain.

Sometimes the echoes of that pain become too much to bear, and then they turn to each other once more, and again not a word is spoken, but consolation and reassurance are freely given nonetheless, in a knowing look, in an awkward brush of hands, in an impulsive embrace.

They will always be remnants, two leftover pieces from a long-forgotten puzzle, but together, when they're holding each other too tightly for either to move, too tightly to think, almost too tightly to breathe, they are almost enough.

* * *

Kakashi & Rin – The breaking is what binds them.


End file.
